Shipwreck Playtest


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Homewbrew world, homebrew game.

One of the player's made an Investigator (other two were Gunslinger and Barbarian).

Not a lot of combat, but quite a bit of roleplaying and overcoming and surviving, so will post that. When combat happens, I'll return and post that (2 weeks).

So, the player liked the class, had a fairly easy time building him, Build is below.

STR : 13, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 17, Wis 14, Cha 14 (Rolled stats, 4d6 drop lowest)

Race : Aasimar (Lawbringer)

Level 2 Investigator

Acrobatics 6, Bluff 6, Diplomacy 6, Disable Device 8, Disguise 6, Escape Artist 6, Handle Animal 3, Heal 6, Intimidate 8, Perception 8, Sense Motive 9, Slight of Hand 6, Stealth 7, UMD 6, Kn (Local) 8

Feats : Point Blank Shot
Traits : Eyes & Ears of the City, Crowd Dodger
Scion of Humanity Alt trait, Continual Flame 1/day

We have a houserule about weapon proficencies, everyone get's simple, then you get 1 fighter weapon group if you're a 1/2 BAB class, 2 if you're a 3/4 BAB class, and 4 if you're a 1 BAB class. So he chose Exotic Crossbows (since all crossbows are simple), and Blades (light).

He had 4 inspirations, 40 bolts, and some normal adventuring gear (Rogues Kit, rations, bandolier, cold weather gear, MW Studded Leather, Antidote Kit, MW Theives Tools, Formula Book. He had other stuff like an Alchemists lab, but he left that behind in town since he was going out on a whaling job.

The PCs were on a ship in the whaling fleet, and we noticed something, Investigator has Climb, but not Swim. That seems like a typo, since classes either get both or neither, not one or the other. Either that or Climb is a typo.

Anyway, 8 days out on the ship, he's doing ok, making perception rolls, filling in where he can, making his skill checks trying to get himself a better pay cut when they catch a doomwhale. Then in the middle of the night Doomwhales attack, dozens of them, and they spear the ships, sinking the fleet. The PCs all go into the freezing waters (think Alaskan Crab Fishing and you have the right idea).

Right off he's taking damage because he can't make the DC 10 swim checks to stay afloat in the rough waters. Everyone else is, but not him. The next hour is people making fortitude saves, swim checks, and perception rolls to find stuff to climb up on to get out of the freezing water. He makes his perceptions, but flubs pretty much every other save or swim check multiple times. By the time he manages to get up on a section of floating hull, he's got 1 hp left. He's also failing con checks pretty often (granted his worst stat), and over the next 3 days drifting he ends up with 6 pts of con damage from exposure.

They finally end up washing up on the shore of an island (seperately), and then he finally starts to shine again. Perception rolls, stealth rolls, he finds food when nobody else can find anything. He eventually finds one of the other two PCs (the third nearly killed himself trying to loot a wrecked ship by himself, failed 3 saves in a row, fell 45 ft and only survive because he's a half-orc who used ferocity to stay up at -3 hp and enter rage to take him up to 1 hp then drank two potions to get his HP positive before dropping the rage).

That's where we left off, we'll get to more in two weeks. With combat and traps and mysteries to solve.

First thoughts : The class was good at what it was supposed to do, skills, but had some oddly half baked skill trees (climb but not swim). Low fortitude saves are, as usual, a problem if you're dealing with environment. Over all, of the 3, he had the worst time of the shipwreck. Then again, the other two are fighter types and have good fort saves and higher con.

I'll know more in 2 weeks. The player really liked the class though, even with his issues, and thought it was a great skill monkey build. He did say that he thinks the Poison Use is awful, and should be gotten rid of. I agree, it's an archetype thing.

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